Tackling Life's Lessons

January 2, 2001|By DAVE JOSEPH Staff Writer

CORAL SPRINGS — The limousine is parked out front, and that's a good thing because you figure Big Dan's home.

Past the wooden rocker on the porch that needs refurbishing -- into an immaculate home with football trophies every few feet (Is that the Butkus?) and a video library of nearly every football game his son has played -- Big Dan sits in the corner of the living room in shorts, a T-shirt, and his cap turned backward.

His son, Hurricanes linebacker Dan Morgan, sits in front of the television in shorts, a T-shirt and a cap turned backward.

So is it true, Big Dan is asked.

"You mean the fight?" he asks. "It's true. But it's gotten like I put the Great Santini to shame. That's a little exaggerated."

The truth is Big Dan was looking out the kitchen window of his South Philly apartment, looking down on the street from his apartment that sat on the top of a hill, and Little Dan was being shoved around by a couple of local toughs while they played football.

Little Dan, only 9 and the new kid on the block, skulked back to the apartment where Big Dan was waiting.

"I saw that," he told his son. "What the hell is going on? Get your ass back out there."

Big Dan adjusts his cap.

"It was either have him come home every day and me saying [And Big Dan says the following in a sing-song way with a high voice] `Oh, don't fight,' or `Go kick their ass and you'll never have to put up with it again.'''

Little Dan kicked their ass.

"And you know what?'' Big Dan says. "We still get Christmas cards from both of those kids."

There's a moment of silence. Two days before Christmas, less than two weeks before his son showcases his enormous talents against Florida in tonight's Sugar Bowl, and Big Dan settles back into his chair.

"But it wasn't like I was the Great Santini," says Big Dan, before smiling and saying, "Although I do have a copy of that movie."

Natural toughness

If Dan Morgan is the quickest, most devastating linebacker in the country -- if he's every father's dream because he doesn't drink or party and calls dad his best friend -- it's due in large part to Big Dan.

Former football player, bouncer, and grandson of Ireland's bare-fisted boxing champion, Ed Kelly -- currently limo driver, bodyguard and good friend of Dan Marino -- Big Dan grew up in Lansdowne, Pa., the same neighborhood that included 76ers President Pat Croce, and starred on the local football team before getting kicked off his senior year for smoking a cigarette.

He served in the Marines, came back and played semipro ball with The Upper Darby Sharks of the Delaware Valley, and was even scouted by Temple and Maryland. But Big Dan was married, and, "instead of me playing ball I wanted to watch my son play ball."

And Little Dan could play. Watch the videos. All of a sudden you'll see "some big, old helmet running down the field," Big Dan says. That helmet is knocking people over and racing past every other kid on the field.

That's Dan Morgan.

"I was always fast," Dan said. "I used to watch all the older kids to see how they played. I knew my dad played football, so I'd always ask him how I could get better and faster. One day he went out and bought me a jump rope and said, `Go ahead and jump, and you'll be faster.'''

Little Dan, 7, would jump 200, 300 times? The kid was driven. He would bring videos home of his football games and ask his father how to play better; how to react better in certain situations.

"How do I break this tackle, how can I hit 'em hard," Dan remembers asking his father. "And my father always gave me the right advice. He told me to look at their waist and you'll never miss them. And every game when I'd get in the open field with a running back, I'd never miss a tackle."

Little Dan was growing up, and Big Dan was itching for a change. "It was that northeast, gray funk," Big Dan said. "You're outside four months of the year and the other eight months you're locked up. Like hibernation."

Dan and his wife, Cass, used to take Little Dan and sister Shannen to Fort Lauderdale every year on vacation. That's the place to go, they thought. They packed and left South Philly in '91 when Little Dan was 12.

While Morgan became popular at school -- he nailed a 230-pound bully his first day of school -- Big Dan was looking for work. One night while taking a walk, Cass got hit with some water balloons thrown by some locals. Big Dan found the biggest one and decked him.

A few days later, one of the men asked Morgan to work as a bouncer at The Edge, one of the few alternatives clubs at the time in Fort Lauderdale.

"It was hard core, Nine Inch Nails," Big Dan said. "I took my wife there one night to see a band called Skatenigs."

You know the Skatenigs, right? Roaring sound. Warped, barking vocals. Released the album Stupid People Shouldn't Breed.